I ordered a Grizzly G0719 15” disc sander for the shop. The little Delta 12” I have is woefully underpowered and weak for what I was doing so I decided to upgrade.

In tracking the sander I saw it had been delivered to the local terminal and I drove over to pick it up rather than wait to have it delivered after the weekend. What I saw was scary! The crate holding the sander was crushed and in small pieces, the sander had a large scrape on top of the housing where the paint had been scraped off and the work table was at an odd angle. The box containing the stand didn’t look any to well either so I refused the shipment and reported it to Grizzly. The dock worker I was with said he thought it looked like it had been dropped.

The Grizzly people were super nice and promised to look into this and hopefully get another one on its way to me soon. A phone call later that day from Grizzly stated UPS Freight didn’t know it had been damaged or refused.

So, this morning a UPS Freight trailer backs up to my dock and inside was the same damaged and previously refused disc sander. I told the driver it had been refused three days earlier and all he could do was shut the trailer door, laugh and say he wasn’t surprised.

So work for the sander will pile up while UPS and Grizzly work out the details. Hopefully it won’t take UPS to long to admit damage.

In the 7 years I have lived in northeast WA, I have yet to received an undamaged package from UPS. Fedex and USPS no problems. UPS sucks for being careful with packages. I always ask vendors and suppliers if they can ship any way other then UPS. Many of them can and do when I explain the UPS track record here. They don’t want to have to deal with the UPS nightmare of getting claims settled.

-- Don, Diamond Lake Custom Woodworks - http://www.dlwoodworks.com - "If you make something idiot proof, all they do is make a better idiot"

I, too, have had major problems with UPS. My company will no longer accept UPS shipments. Fedex Ground is always demanded. If you cannot adapt, then our company will refuse to purchase from your firms.

Well that sucks. It boggles my mind the number of damage reports I read from shipping companies. I realize that accidents can and will happen to all of them at some point, but I’m surprised at the frequency….that’s their livelihood, and there’s no shortage of competition. It’s got to be very expensive to wreck stuff on a regular basis, and there has to be some known practices to reduce damage….if not, some brainiac would do well to invent some!

In fairness to my local delivery guys and gals, I’ve been fortunate to have never received severely damage stuff. Knock wood, my UPS and USPS guys have been great…often stopping into the shop for a minute to see what I’m up to or what tool I just got.

-- Happiness is like wetting your pants...everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth....

I once had a guitar neck snapped off by UPS. Box was triple thick and they obviously dropped the edge of a large box right in the middle, snapping the guitar. The owner in Minnesota wanted to send it back right away to me in Tennessee, but UPS told me that it would prevent a damage claim, so I told him to keep it until I could get it fixed. UPS took a MONTH to finally send the authorization and ship it back to me, even though we had pictures from day one.I did the repairs, and UPS paid to ship it again. Then I submitted a bill for the repairs to UPS, since I had paid for the insurance. Took me three visits and another month for UPS to finally get a check cut.When I had my retail store, we used Fed Ex and had the same approx. problems. They are all bad, to be honest.

I have, though, noticed an uptick in theft in USPS shipments, especially the envelopes. I lost a book, and my wife lost some valuable coupons. Took them right out of the envelopes. They do look…Tape the heck out of everything.